“To conquer fear, you have to feel the fear and take action anyway.”

A thought by John C. Maxwell (2000-03-08) from his book, Failing Forward: How to Makethe Most of Your Mistakes (p. 41). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

I’m sure all of us have something that we are afraid of and we'd like to conquer it. For some it might be a snake or a spider and those can be annoying but for the most part that fear doesn’t keep us from living life to its fullest. You just strive to keep away from them.

But others have fears that keep them from living life to the level that God has for them and they want to somehow conquer their fears.

For some it might be the fear of their health. They know they need to exercise or eat right or check their blood sugar. And as John says, “You can't wait for motivation to get you going.”

But in doing this John says, “Motivation is not going to strike you like lightning. And motivation is not something that someone else —nurse, doctor, family member— can bestow or force on you. The whole idea of motivation is a trap.” It’s a trap.

Then he says, “Forget motivation. Just do it. Exercise, lose weight, test your blood sugar, or whatever. Do it without motivation and then guess what. After you start doing the thing, that's when the motivation comes and makes it easy for you to keep on doing it. Motivation is like love and happiness. It's a by-product. When you're actively engaged in doing something, it sneaks up and zaps you when you least expect it. As Harvard psychologist Jerome Bruner says, ‘You're more likely to act yourself into feeling than feel yourself into action.’ So act! Whatever it is you know you should do, do it.’” Just do it.

So what is it you need to do?

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